There’s no shortage of reasons to be pessimistic about the state of the truckload industry. Fuel costs are up, used truck prices are down and drivers are in short supply. The Fed is raising interest rates, and stock prices are in the dumper.

Schneider Logistics purchased Tranzact Systems, a Homewood, Ill.-based freight payment company, and will operate the business as a stand-alone freight payment and auditing service.

PNV Inc., a company that provides telephone and cable connections at truck stops, has launched a wireless network that gives truck drivers broadband access to the Internet.

The communications developments that have revolutionized the freight brokerage industry might also bury it as freight brokers fret about the threat posed by load-matching via the Internet.

Schneider Logistics purchased Tranzact Systems, a Homewood, Ill.-based freight payment company, and will operate the business as a stand-alone freight payment and auditing service.

United Parcel Service’s tender offer to buy back as many as 100.9 million shares of restricted stock fell well short of that number, netting only 69.3 million shares.

As the driver pinch gets tighter and tighter, the search for workers to fill the seats of America’s trucks keeps getting wider.

Buoyed by the Defense Department’s success in changing the way it pays its freight bills, the General Services Administration is moving to encourage all federal agencies to adopt electronic payment and other commercial business practices.

Watkins Motor Lines, the nation’s eighth-largest less-than-truckload carrier, has formed a joint venture with Saddle Creek Corp. to offer warehousing and distribution services nationwide.

A federal agency charged with collecting financial and operating statistics from trucking firms has denied requests from 24 carriers that the data not be released to the public.